Statements by FIFA President Gianni Infantino have not been well received in Ukraine. Infantino recently stated that Russia's suspension has achieved nothing but increased hatred, proposing the return of Russian teams, at least at the youth level.
Shakhtar Donetsk executive Serhii Palkin did not hold back with his statement, while responding in rather harsh tones, recalling that Ukraine is in the fourth year of a total war with hundreds of thousands of victims and destroyed infrastructure.
He openly challenged Infantino, asking why in four years of war he had never visited Ukraine to watch children play football under the sirens of air raids.
"Gianni Infantino's position represents a complete disconnect from reality and I am deeply disappointed by it. We have suffered from a total war for four years. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Political, sporting and energy infrastructures have been destroyed.
Declarations are not a path to peace, they are a continuation of this horror. They are an attempt to pretend that war and aggression do not exist. Football cannot exist outside of reality. And it has no right to turn a blind eye to the evil that is being done.
What leads you to these statements now? Why, after four years of war, haven't you come to Ukraine even once to see with your own eyes what is happening here?
"Let Mr. Infantino come and see how children play football in Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kiev and Lviv, under the sirens of air raids, next to shelters, under the constant threat of missiles and drones.", declared Palkin.
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